It was shuttered before letters to faculty, staff and parents could be read. Gates were padlocked. The school marquee went blank. Parents and teachers heard the news on social media.

It was announced in a news release July 17, a Monday. No mention had been made at Sunday Masses the day before.

Former Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson, an alumnus of the school and a member of its council, called it “a surprise attack.”

“I’m hurt and disappointed,” said Irene Jones, 65, a teacher at the school for 35 years.

She wasn’t alone.

Parents, alumni and others said they felt let down, not supported, by archdiocesan officials and Father Jimmy Drennan, their pastor.

Sister Martha Janysek, a Felician Franciscan nun who taught at the school, said she felt betrayed and made to feel like “a criminal” when school personnel were told that they would need to show receipts to recover personal items left in the school.

Of the school’s finances, Janysek, like others, has been frustrated. “I want the truth to be told,” she said.

The status of those finances has been the focus of much rancor. They’re unusual. While many urban Catholic schools have closed because of population shifts, enrollment declines and lack of funding, the school’s advocates point to one major difference at St. Margaret Mary School.

It closed with more than $890,000 in an endowment fund.

Requests for interviews with archdiocese, parish and school officials about the school’s finances were referred to archdiocese spokesman Jordan McMorrough, who took questions via email.

He said that only $4,000 in interest earned from the fund was available at the time of the school’s closing.

School activists, among them members of the school council and its Save Our School Campaign, said the school had far more available, closer to $200,000, but was not allowed to spend it. The archdiocese disputes that figure.

Activists have been upset about a host of other issues.

They accuse the archdiocese of fulfilling its own prophesy that the school would have to close by deferring maintenance and applying Band-Aids to aging infrastructure. Even minor upgrades would have improved the school’s ability to maintain and build enrollment, they said.

The archdiocese’s decision this spring to do away with the school’s sixth, seventh and eighth grades, encouraging those students to enroll at St. Gerard Regional Catholic Middle School, also sank St. Margaret Mary’s chances of staying open, activists said.

And they say the school wasn’t allowed to meet fall enrollment goals for the remaining elementary grades set by the archdiocese because officials didn’t wait long enough for parents and grandparents to make such decisions, which usually happens close to the start of the school year.

“If it was an ordinary school, I wouldn’t be so upset,” said Santos Balleza, whose daughter attended St. Margaret May since prekindergarten as part of a family tradition.

Some parents can look past the lack of investment in the school “because of family ties,” she said. But investment could have made a difference, she said.

“I’m heartbroken,” said Nora Gerhardt, another parent, who called the decision to remove middle-schoolers a mistake. She said it made it impossible to recruit new parents who have children in various grade levels.

The archdiocese’s news release noted that St. Margaret Mary had registered only 53 students for the fall by mid-July.

“Financial projections for the school, even with an optimistic enrollment total of 117 students, indicated that St. Margaret Mary would still operate at a very significant financial deficit for the upcoming year,” it said.

McMorrough, the archdiocese spokesman, said a number of faculty and staff members already had been hired at other archdiocesan schools and that 40 of the 53 students from 30 families preregistered attended a forum to obtain information on other Catholic school options.

He said many are now enrolled.

In emails, McMorrough said St. Margaret Mary’s endowment fund had an ending balance of $890,153 on March 31 and that the fund has restrictions on what could be spent. After March 31, the school had only $4,219 available for distribution. From July 2016 to that date, it received $15,182 from the endowment.

“Their latest distribution earlier this year was $7,500 received by St. Margaret Mary Church for painting at the school,” he wrote.

“While it is true that enrollment numbers increase right before school starts,” McMorrough wrote, “in this circumstance the office at St. Margaret Mary School called each of the enrolled families from last year and discovered that many were choosing not to return.”

“Without the commitment of the existing community, and without growth in the early childhood program, the school was facing a significant deficit in excess of $350,000 for the upcoming school year,” he said.

The endowment is held by the parish, and Drennan serves as its trustee.

Advocates of the school acknowledge that the fund’s “income dispersement” does amount to about $4,000. They said they understand the endowment is restricted but allows for use of interest earned from the endowment’s investments. That sum approaches $200,000, they said.

Parents were told that the school’s closure would make the endowment available exclusively for parish educational purposes, primarily religious education offered to children preparing for sacraments.

At a July 19 meeting described as contentious, archdiocese officials spoke with parents, alumni, teachers and community members. The news media were barred. One parent publicly scolded Bishop Michael Boulette as he left the campus.

Parents were still holding signs afterward that said, “St. Margaret Mary has an $800,000 endowment fund. Why wasn’t any of the money used to help with needed repairs and upgrades that would have helped increase enrollment and keep the school open?”

David Schott, who taught at the school for 44 years, said archdiocese officials seemed unprepared to answer challenges from school advocates. “The church professes social justice and compassion,” he said. “They just didn’t do enough for us.”

The episode has left others such as alumna Gladys Koval praying that the parish, their pastor and archdiocese give St. Margaret Mary School what it deserves.